In the 1950's, before Sellers' career really got going, he starred in a handful of short films, a trio of which were shown here. The common link between them is Sellers' character, Hector Dimwiddle, a hardworking but often unsuccessful middle class gent, put upon by his inlaws, and unknowingly reliant on his dependable wife.

Two of the films, Dearth of a Salesman and Insomnia is Good For You were considered lost for many years before turning up in the late 90's. These were presented in what looked like a restored digital print. The third, Cold Comfort, was in much poorer condition, but still watchable. You can see clips of the first two here.

These films were roughly cut, and it was clear both actor and director were feeling their way with the filmmaking techniques at the time, which lends a certain charm. Sellers later talents of vocal mimicry and physical slapstick are seen in an early stage, and it was nice to see some examples of the proving ground he used to hone them. But ultimately, these films are more of a lighthearted distraction than a necessary pilgrimage for Sellers' fans, and if you were not to catch them in your lifetime, you have more accessible and entertaining examples of his work to fall back on. 6/10

Jennifer Aniston gets a bit of flak as an actress, probably due to being the most annoying one from Friends, plus some pretty awful adverts ('here comes the science bit...!'). But she's also managed a few unexpectedly good turns as well - she had a credit in South Park, of all things, and you can't fault her in Office Space, and...

Well, we can also add A Life of Crime to that list. Aniston's character, Mickey, is the frustrated trophy wife of Tim Robbins' Frank, and they spend their time letting everyone know how happy they are together, at golf clubs and swanky parties. It's all a front, and the love left their lives long ago.

But it was convincing enough to encourage small time crooks Louie and Ordell to take a pop at some amateur hostage taking, using the local nazi gun nut's house as a place to keep her while they wait for the money to roll in. But when Frank sees this as an opportunity to get out of his nightmare marriage without having to pay divorce fees, Mickey's future depends wholly on the unpredictable nature of her captors.

A pretty standard crime caper is made much more fun by some well-known faces and some sharp dialogue, the main thrust of the plot nicely complicated by the sleuthing of good-intentioned but unappealing neighbour Marshall, who has always been hovering around the cadaver of their relationship waiting to see what he can salvage for himself. 7.5/10

Director Leah Meyerhoff laid herself bare on the celluloid in this semi-autobiographical, kickstarted film about Davina, a young teen who one day leaves her life of caring for her sick mother, and takes off with an older boy with which she falls in desperate love. A moody, petty criminal, Sterling can do no wrong in her eyes, even when it is clear he could be a danger to be around. When he suggests they climb into his battered car and keep driving, she can't help but follow.

Mayerhoff's film is about a young woman maturing both sexually and emotionally; the audience is asked to sit there helpless, hoping that Davina can see for herself whether Sterling is the right man for her before she passes the point of no return. Cleverly, the film presents some degree of ambiguity, suggesting that these two can be happy together, and, as in Davina's emerging fantasies, she can soothe the wounds that cause the problems between them, so it is some way in before we can guess the outcome. Some of it can be difficult to watch, such as Davinas' ever willingness to present her body as a solution whenever there is a problem between them, but this is necessary in a realistic character study of blind love and desperation for a life less ordinary. 7.5/10

This documentary comes at a time when many have heard about the changes in the US constitution that came about largely as a result of the retelling of events. In California in 2008, same-sex couples were allowed to marry, but, as is often the case with progressive gains, there were many who took offence to this (gee, I wonder who they could be), and very quickly, Proposition 8 was created - which reinstated a previous ban not more than a few months after same sex marriages were allowed. All those couples who had been married in the interim received an impersonal letter telling them it had been annulled.

Two couples however decided to fight the ruling, and brought an appeal that was to stand out for two reasons - first that it would take five years to finally be resolved, and that it brought together the legal minds of two individuals you would have expected never to agree on anything.

David Boles and Ted Olsen were on opposite sides of the 2000 presidential election controversy, where Al Gore's people were demanding a pivotal recount. Taking sides reflecting their political colours, Boles fought for Gore, and Olsen for Bush. Bush won and the rest is history, so to find common ground in marriage equality from both sides of the political spectrum was both a surprise and a feather in the cap; cross-party support showed that this was not a political issue.

Some may ask: what's the big deal? Same sex couples can have civil partnerships and receive all the same rights as hetero couples. But people are being discriminated against based upon nothing more than who they are. If a law was to be passed requiring that people with black hair were not allowed to ride on the front seats of a bus, would those affected be happy as there are lots of seats they could sit on? I suspect even those who never use public transport would feel aggrieved about such an arcane decision.

The Case Against 8 tells the story from the appeals side, using footage filmed in the legal offices and courts, with news reports and talking heads mixed in for good measure. It's an important historical document of how the right will eventually happen, told with surprising humour and a focus on the human lives hanging in the balance on the decision. Many times over the years they seemed to have won, only for the opposition to appeal and take things higher. Victory would take a long time coming, but eventually it did, and the eventual ruling - that same sex marriage bans do not benefit anyone and discriminate unfairly, and is thus unconstitutional - became the catalyst for other states to follow suit. Many subsequent statues have fallen with 19 states currently supporting same sex marriage. Hopefully, eventually, they will all fall. 8/10

Who can tell how a person will react in the heat of the moment? For Jesse, a young teen in a shopping mall, his is to stand dumbfounded as his friend is stabbed and killed in front of him. Quiet and introverted, he relies on the comforting embrace of his other friends to help him through the difficult aftermath, but when it becomes clear that he failed to do anything to stop it, some of his peers begin to push him out of the group.

Violet is very bare-boned, with a lot of long, drawn out shots with not a lot happening. Some of this is down to the tension of the moment, of Jesse's racing mind behind a stoic expression, but it can get a bit samey and feels forced sometimes. The first, lauded feature film by director Bas Devos; it does tackle the aftermath of such an event in a very atmospheric manner, it does feel like a film that was stretched out to pass the hour milestone required to count as a full feature. And celebrated talk of a final scene being 'amazing' - well, I couldn't see what the protracted 9-minte shot ending in an overenthusiastic smoke machine was really trying to say. 5/10

The
lonely life of a long distance lorry driver doesn't have a lot of
leeway to grow into something larger, and one way to make sure of that
is to confine the majority of the film to inside the cab. Despite this,
Tir does well with it's confinements. Branco has been with his firm
for a few months, earning a substantially larger wage packet than he did
as a teacher. Though this provides for his far-away family (which he
keeps in touch with via the cab radio), it means a lot of time away from
them on the road. Shot much like a documentary, we join Branco and his
cab partner Maki as they take turns sleeping and driving across
Europe. Moving slowly, the film captures the increasing realisation
that Branco needs to reassess his career once more, as Maki moves on
without a replacement, his bosses want more and more from him, and the
increasingly strained conversations with his wife suggest he might want
to be at home more, lest she start some shenanigans with a family
friend.

Tir will probably be too slow for some, but
what eventually emerges is the not so glamorous life on the road for
thousands of truck drivers the world over, the film highlighting the
early starts, claustrophobic conditions and the colourful characters
encountered along the way. I certainly have a better appreciation of
such careers, and would be quite happy not switching mine, thank you
very much. 7/10

Did
you notice that 'Fra' bit in the title up there? Did that set off any
alarm bells for you? If you wondered maybe this might be an annoying
French film, you would be right!

I didn't know who Michel Houellbecq was prior to this film, and maybe it would have been a good idea to find out who he was
before watching the film. He is apparently a prolific and
controversial author and filmmaker, who during a book tour in 2011, fell
off the radar for a while. Some people thought maybe he had been
kidnapped, and thus the premise of the film was born.

Houellbecq
decided to lend himself to the title role, and plays what the blurb
assures me is a caricature of himself, although not one as entertaining
as Bruce Campbell did in My Name is Bruce.
Instead, he is a shambling, withered and thoroughly annoying man,
forever trudging the streets of France being philosophically French
(yes, again) at the most mundane of subjects with anyone who will engage
him in conversation. His flappy, gummy mouth bibbles out guff and
spittle, and do please cover your ears when he is eating, as it is not a
sound you want your head to be invaded by.

I would
like to think that this thoroughly dislikeable character is indeed a
caricature of the man, but I will have to blame that on my optimistic
outlook on life.

The film, never intended as a
serious character study, fulfils the intention of the title - eventually
- as a trio of brothers, all meat-headed bodybuilders, follow him,
bundle him in a box, and take them to their parent's house, who seem
completely okay with holding him to ransom. Everyone is
uncharacteristically polite, and very little goes on outside the house -
either to hurry along the ransom demands (they just seem to wait for
someone to notice he is missing), or for any alarm bells to be raised.
Instead, the whole experience focuses on a variant of Stockholm
Syndrome; after some polite introductions and more than a little
chainsmoking, the captors relax their already limp grip on him, and
begin to debate with him at the dinner table.

As a
kidnapping film, Houellbecq falls flat on it's face. Too busy having
fun with itself, any believability is thrown from the window and it's
mildly entertaining silliness is all it can fall back on - something it
loses somewhat with the introduction of a local prostitute part way
through, which I felt ran contrary to the lightheartedness of the rest
of the film. I find it difficult to recommend to anyone, which is a
shame as the mechanic of a bunch of bodybuilders and a frail
intellectual introducing each other to their experiences could have been
used so much more effectively. 5.5/10

The
stories of the Fox and the Tanuki (Raccoon-type creatures native to
Japan) are prevalent in Japanese folklore, and most Japanese children,
and the adults they grow into will know at least a few of them. In
them, the animals are mischievous shape-shifters who often assume the
form of human beings, in order to trick us out of our belongings. The
Studio Ghibli film Pom Poko
plays on elements of several of the stories, although mostly from the
point of view of the Tanuki. Mostly, though these stories are
relatively unknown outside of Japan.

So it was with
some surprise to learn that the directors of this film were Turkish and
French, who went to great lengths to tell a Japanese story as it would
be told by a Japanese director. I think they managed it pretty well.

In
Ningen, a fox and a tanuki collude with each other, betting that they
can swipe the gold from a human through trickery. As a proviso to make
things more interesting, they agree to maintain human form until one of
them wins the bet. But many years later they still haven't succeeded,
and in the meantime, they have forgotten what it was like not to be in
the human world.

This doesn't immediately fit into
the world we are introduced to; a middle-aged and tired looking
businessman and his secretary wife struggle to come to terms of their
departments' dire-looking sales forecasts. He spends his evenings
downing Saki with his friend at the red light district bar, while she
broods at home over her decreasing health. Eventually, the pressure of
the job and the disgrace of failure gets to him, and an attempt to throw
himself from the window of the high-rise building lands him in a mental
home for a spell.

Ningen uses a traditional eastern
way of storytelling that relies more on the viewer working things out
for themselves rather than being obvious about it; it doesn't make clear
until some way in who are the fox and tanuki, and who is their human
target, to the point where you are wondering whether the story was
merely a metaphoric introduction to the film. However, this is a
strength, rather than a frustration of the film, which weaves the
initially separate tales loosely together at first, tightening them
together until they merge as the story matures.

The result is an initially quite ordinary film that develops into something much more rewarding, and well worth a look. 7.5/10

Woody
Allen, despite being well over 200 years old now, is still pumping out
those films. They seem to coincide nicely with the festival circuit.
One seems to be doing the rounds every year.

Magic in
the Moonlight is a jaunty tale set in 1920's France, populated by
affable Brits larking about instead of doing proper work. Colin Firth
is your natural affable Brit, and he does a pretty good job of playing
Stanley, a magician turned professional skeptic who, when not exciting
the crowds with his magic tricks, uncovers the palmreaders and spirit
realm soothsayers for the charlatans they are before any more grieving
widows hand over their moneys for a last chat with their departed other
halves.

Something of a celebrity in the circle, he is confounded by Sophie, a young woman who claims to have psychic powers,
who appears to be the real thing - and after several demonstrations of
her abilities comes to a crashing realisation that there is more to life
than he has allowed himself to believe.

Now don't worry, I haven't gone all new age here. Sophie is indeed
unmasked as a fake, and Allen is not trying to tell us we should all
believe in the unknown wooery peddled by these people, or even in some
general higher order. Firth's skeptic is an arrogant, narrow minded
boor, whose likability is down to the fact that it's Colin Firth
underneath it all; a caricature of the sort of person some would lazily
term as having 'militant' views.

My take on the message
here is in response to the rise of a more skeptical way of thinking in
recent times, which is - sure, question and be critical of limp-minded
explanations of the way the world works, but don't be a dick about it,
and don't close your mind so much that the beauty of the world is also
lost, a message that I can get behind given some recent events in the
atheist community. My only real problem with the film is with Stanleys'
portrayal of a skeptical mind, which some will take away as being
synonymous with unlikability, and perhaps even some mild mental
disorder. But if you can put that aside for a second, it is actually a
pretty good film, and one of the stronger Woody Allen films I've seen
in some time. 7.5/10

So, yes. You might be wondering what the hell is going on with me at the moment, by now I should have done some of the Bradford, and maybe Edinburgh, film festivals. I blogged neither, because I have been to neither. As detailed earlier this week, it's been a strange sort of year for me, simultaneously more and less crowded with things to do. One of the casualties unfortunately, has been the festival circuit.

But, we did manage to make the first few days of Cambridge this year, after a years' break. Cambridge is a beautiful city and it was nice to get back for a little while at least. I wish we could have stayed longer (it's still going on) but the pull of the working week dragged me back.

We stopped briefly outside Leicester to see the Parrots at Tropical Bird Land, but unfortunately the many characters that I remembered from two years before had gone. As it does so often in Desford, it was raining hard and the birds looked miserable. When I asked specifically about Rio, the quiet and adorable Galah Cockatoo I saw on many other occasions, I was told he was missing. When the relatively new assistant went away and asked around, he came back with the unfortunate news that poor Rio had a stroke not long after I saw him last and died. The similar looking but altogether more rowdy cockatoo I had on my shoulder was actually Phooey, who was far less easy going on the fingers.

A few days in Kings Lynn (better considered a base of operations than a destination itself) and then we headed to Cambridge, just as the weather got better. We made use of the bulk discount cards for the films, and chose as many as we could fit in.

Our first film was technically the opening film of CFF, time-wise at least, although didn't have the reputation behind it to give it an opening film 'oomph'. Meis is a precocious young girl, bored and living with her mother and step-dad in a strange backwater. A single house perched on a sharp bend has had it's fair share of accidents with drivers high on adrenalyn or booze careering into it. It seems this is the only way that new things happen, and Meis' step-dad is only the latest of these to enter their lives. Unfortunately, he's a bum, and wants intervention to come crashing through the living room just as much as the other two.

Though Supernova does take some time to get going, and suffers from that perennial French film problem of the characters spouting philosophy needlessly at you, at least the film uses it to give it a stylish, sharp edge. This time it comes from the thoughts and musings of Meis herself, whose long, bored childhood she is beginning to leave behind seems to have been filled with her nose in the science books. Much less than a bookish nerd, she applies the cold logic found within to the world around her, in a strangely likeable way.

Supernova was not a brilliant start to the festival, but given it's not readily accessible ingredients, it could have been a tonne worse. It's offbeat and left-field, bordering on art-house in places, but has a redeeming attitude that saves it from the depths of rubbishness. 7/10

The blurb for this film was a little misleading, as it suggests a documentary of sorts. It isn't. The main character Beate, as best as I can ascertain, is not based on a real person and the story is complete fiction. Well into middle age, she is given terrible news by her doctor - she has a tumor. Reacting as many would in such a situation, she looks at her life, and things maybe now would be the time to achieve some of her remaining goals. Most people aren't in her position however; an ex-olympic swimmer who gave up her dreams to start a family, now stuck between a needy daughter and a bumbling son who still seem to demand her constant attention.

These things drop away when you get news like that, and so she launches herself at her goal - swimming the English channel - to the dismay of friends and family alike.

The film is a pretty standard 'overcome adversity' fare, with a solid, dependable story underneath. It doesn't give many surprises along the way - and it's no spoiler to say she manages it - but it was solidly acted, entertaining and a satisfying watch, even if you knew what the ending was going to be from the start. 7.5/10

We were hoping to see this - which was a genuine documentary. The drab-sounding blurb talked of a ring road around Rome and the people who inhabit it was made all the more interesting when we learn that it was the first documentary to receive a Golden Lion at Venice. Unfortunately, the DVD gremlins were in force, and the film had no subtitles, rendering it pretty much unwatchable to anyone not speaking the lingo. Hopefully I can catch it elsewhere.

5:18 is not a great time for a marathon, especially as I was aiming for less than five, and it was five minutes SLOWER than my time at the far more hilly Liverpool marathon from 2 years previous.

I put it down to training - I just didn't do the distances. You are told that, before it gets to the 4-weeks to go mark, you need to do a big practice run - about 20 of the 26 miles - and then taper until the big day.

I held steady at a half marathon distance and no further.

Perhaps unsurprisingly when I was in the race, the first half marathon went fine. I made it over London Bridge - the halfway point - without dropping my pace. I'd passed the 4:30 pacesetter and was going well. Then my thigh muscles turned into plates of iron as if to say 'you usually have a bit of a lie down about now, so why are you still moving?', and I hobbled around painfully the rest of the way.

I just couldn't get back on the horse - the lactic acid buildup in the legs was just too much. Although my performance might have also been affected by the thousands of other runners squeezed into the narrow roadway, either going too fast to allow me to move away from the 'hard shoulder' and thus stuck with the walkers, or stop-starting right in front of me so I couldn't build momentum. Some less than helpful spectators shouting encouragement - if it can be called that - right into your earhole as you passed didn't help either.

Anyway, despite remarking to Ms. Plants that I was never going to do that ever again, I will be doing it again next year, assuming I make it through the ballot.

And, I still have a chance to get a sub-5h time this year. I'm also doing the Jane Tomlinson York Marathon, and well in training. I did 17 miles last weekend in under 3 hours, and next weekend, I'll attempt 20 or so. Hopefully, this will give me the edge I was missing in the race.

I can see why so many blogs go south; a few posts and then they fall silent.

Things happen in people's lives which can preoccupy them to the point where some of the things they used to do regularly get pushed to the back of the queue, or maybe even fail to happen at all any more. So many things I used to do with all the time I used to have - where did it go?

Not after any sympathy, here. I'm just waxing lyrical.

DVD's and video games, for example. Two things that would eat up serious time in my life, barely get a look in now. I have piles of both still to watch or play, some of which stretch back a decade. And yet I'm still sucker enough for a cheap bargain to add to the list of 'to watch', or 'to play'.

For the past decade - from 2005 to the present day, my days have mostly involved 'the films', 'the running' and 'the garden'. The former two are pretty familiar if you have been here before - my obsessive-compulsive need to see every film I can at the festivals around the UK, and my strategy to maintain a reasonable weight by jogging the flab away have been well documented. But the garden has been going on largely in the background, although budget- and time-wise, it has certainly been the focus of many a summer; heaving soil into skips and building retaining walls, laying patios and building fences.

This year, however, it was finally completed to much relief. Slowly but surely, year after year, the garden turned from unmaintainable wreck to tamed, patio'd sun trap. The last ten years spent making a home that myself and Ms. Plants can enjoy has come to an end. I consider it a distinct chapter of my life, done and dusted.

You would think maybe that some of my old pursuits might now get a look-in, but life has a way of making such abandonments pretty permanent, and the next big thing is just over the horizon.

We are expecting our first child in November.

We have just hit the third trimester.

We are very happy, but we are also bricking it.

The last six months has been a bit of a whirlwind, and any thoughts of far off holidays or festival excursions were put on ice once we knew for sure. We are not young parents, so we were conscious of the risks of complications, which thankfully have not appeared. Hopefully, it's a clear sprint to the finish.

During this time, the blog has been the last thing on my mind. I am sorry, both to any visitors who may read with interest my blatherings, and to myself, as I have found it a useful external memory to remind me of my comings and goings. I have just not been in the frame of mind.

We've been working hard and altering the house - again - for an extra pair of legs toddling around. Our biggest scheme - a major kitchen redesign that will involve bricking up doors and knocking down walls, isn't even started yet. We hope to have it done before the big day.

I hope to be able to return to some form of regular posting at some point; I tried in March, but that didn't keep up for long. A blog needs an author to be in a communicative mood, and that is something I have just fallen out of being for the moment.

So my life is about to change once again, and some of my older pastimes will no doubt be pushed away as my new role as a parent begins, and replaced by at least a few of the joyful times that parents and children get up to.

Letting go of the old won't be easy for me, but at least some of those unwatched DVD's might come in handy during those sleepless nights..